Our true acquisitions lie only in our charities - we gain only as we give.

The only true source of politeness is consideration,--that vigilant moral sense which never loses sight of the rights, the claims, and the sensibilities of others. This is the one quality, over all others, necessary to make a gentleman.

Better that we should err in action than wholly refuse to perform. The storm is so much better than the calm, as it declares the presence of a living principle. Stagnation is something worse than death. It is corruption also.

What we call vice in our neighbor may be nothing less than a crude virtue. To him who knows nothing more of precious stones than he can learn from a daily contemplation of his breastpin, a diamond in the mine must be a very uncompromising sort of stone.

Not in sorrow freely is never to open the bosom to the sweets of the sunshine.

The proverb answers where the sermon fails.

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.